I had the family over tonight- not the family who birthed me and then wounded me so deeply and with whom I am once again trying to give birth to something new- but rather the family I met here just over two years ago. I sent my wayward words out in the world and they answered and became something tangible and stable and beautiful for me to bump up against as I found my way into myself. It was beautiful to see them all, and to celebrate the engagement of two members of our group and the many beautiful lives and relationships that have emerged among the rest. But still somehow as I am left in my empty house after their departure I find tears in my eyes. These are not tears of joy, although there have been plenty of those too these past few years. It may seem like a ludicrous thing to say at 25 but lately I have been feeling so very old. So old, in fact, that I was deeply surprised when I got carded at the grocery store today, although I know they card anyone who looks under 35. It’s just that it seems to me the past two years have aged me so deeply I cannot seem to fathom that the rest of the world might not notice. It seems that we were children when we met, just embarking on an adventure in a world where we had never believed we could fully live. We were giddy and terrified and hopeful and probably drinking a little more than we should have. We had parties long into the night filled with laughter and ranting and at the center of it all there were the war stories from our first forays into love, our schools who would kick us out in the name of Jesus if the were given just one opportunity to see us for who we truly were, and worst of all from parents who sometimes wanted never to see us again if they couldn’t hide any longer from who we had become. It is these things that aged us. There was laughter tonight, but there was also sadness. Almost, even, a hardness. There is only so much of other people’s distaste, judgment, and misunderstanding of you that you can take before you begin to get angry. Mostly though, lately, I am just tired. And counting down the months until I can put behind me this chapter of my life where I have to constantly look over my shoulder. Where I constantly have to worry that if I tell too many people the truth about myself, I will no longer be welcome in my own school. That has been worse even then the most difficult times with my parents, or the best friends I have lost, or the fact that when we think about what city we want to move to next we always have to pause and consider what our chances would be of being injured or even killed there because we are together.
Looking around the faces in the room tonight, we did not have any wrinkles or gray hairs (or at least not many) to show for the past few years, but I think that you could hear it in our voices. Sadness, yes. Bitterness? Perhaps a little. But also wisdom. We have traveled weary roads and we have learned to survive. Not just to survive, but to live and breathe to speak up and out and over their noise and their silencing. We have found love and friendships and success in its many forms. And we have dug down deep within ourselves and found that we will keep fighting to make a place for ourselves in this world and insisting that our voices are heard so that there are spaces and voices for all the others who will come after us. We have reached out our hands to an ever growing network of people who have walked roads much like our own and said to them: come, walk with us… you are not alone, and there is space for you too. And for that very reason I would not change one single moment of it. I mean this. In class this week a teacher asked us what we were grateful for this year as Thanksgiving approaches and I said I was grateful for my friends who have become my family in these most difficult of years. But what I would have said, if I could have said everything, was that I am deeply grateful to be a lesbian, because it has connected me the most beautiful group of people in the world who have truly become my family even when my own family could not stand by me. Even as we all begin to drift our own ways and find our own corners of the world in which to settle and begin our families, I will never forget these years that we shared. And most of all, I am grateful because being gay has opened my eyes to countless other LGBT individuals from Christian backgrounds who have stories much like my own to tell. I cannot believe that I am lucky enough to have a story to share with them and a life to share with them and that I get to make maybe just a little bit of difference in their journeys. I wouldn’t trade that. Not even for all the love and simplicity that I have lost.
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November 22, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Casey
Dear D,
I am glad to hear that you guys still hang out, and while part of me wishes I was there in that room with you last evening, I wouldn’t have missed the way I actually did spend my evening last night for anything in the world – because I spent the night responding to an e-mail that found its way to me because of this website, and the community you built here. Somehow, two years or so later, these words still have power, and are still lighting the way for people who are just stepping out, hoping for a taste of the freedom we’ve been blessed with – I feel so privileged to be able to play a part in that, however small. I was going to write you today to thank you for making last evening possible for me, and I find instead that you’ve written again. My cup runneth over. *smiles*
And yet, all is not sweetness and light in your world, and this saddens me. I know what you mean about the creeping bitterness, the aging which comes with constant struggle. I’ve been there, and resisting it today continues to be a feature of doing the work I do. But it can be resisted – it isn’t inevitable, and it can be fought – you don’t have to accept the consequences of their hatred. In response to reading this, I can only think of one thing to tell you. I’ve mentioned before the general story of how I came to believe, after years of attempted atheism – the chance meeting with a community of Christians who welcomed me, the love they showed me, the slow discovery of God’s true nature through Bible studies and tentative, halting prayers where I wasn’t struck by lightning – but the moment of decision itself had somewhat uglier roots.
It was the start of 2005. Barely two months before, on another bad Election Day, I was striking out at every Christian I saw, bitterly venting my disappointment at 11 state constitutional amendments passed and a president put into office by millions of “values voters” who walked into the booth hating me. My rage didn’t discriminate – gay friendly, indifferent, active ‘phobes, if they identified with Christ, I hated them… even my friends, who had never done anything to harm me, who only wanted to understand, suffered my wrath. I almost walked away for good that week. I only went back to the fellowship by accident, when I went for a walk and force of habit unconsciously took me to where they were meeting – I spent the hour in the back of the room, silently raging at a God that I wanted nothing to do with… especially when he showed me a mirror of my blind hatred, and commanded me to forgive – something I just couldn’t do right then. I knew it was ugly, but I was going to live with it… the ugliness was satisfying, in a way. But the way God met me meant I couldn’t choose not to believe yet, so I stuck around, in an odd sort of stasis. God was real, but I couldn’t accept what he was offering, if forgiving those who hurt me was the price.
It wasn’t until shortly after Christmas that things came to a head, again for ugly reasons. I looked up one day to see that hatred had made my mother old, and bitter, and deeply ill – a hatred that stemmed from her inability to forgive my father (who absolutely deserved her anger). Her hatred was, literally, killing her, and much as I pleaded with her to let it go, she wouldn’t… maybe couldn’t. And on the same day, I heard that my estranged sister, a traitor in the model of Judas, had found cancerous cells in her body – and I didn’t care, so deep was my hatred for her. It was a shocking discovery. And it was frightening, because I had the evidence in front of me of what that kind of acid can do to a soul. I fled the house that night, driving through pouring rain to my Christian friend, running away from the future my hatred had in store for me. When I got there, she pointed me one more time to the God who forgives all, who gives all the strength to forgive anything, and finally I was humbled enough to drop my hatred at the foot of the cross, and hope that the Jesus I’d heard of could take it, and give me something else to fill up my suddenly hollow soul. That’s the truth of my conversion – not a gradual lightening of reason or discovery of joy, but a wild flight… and the days after it, years after it, in which I’ve been able to start to forgive, to do the constant work of forgiving, and in which I haven’t been touched by that black acid which might well have killed me by now.
The aging, the bitterness you sense – it has the same source as that thing I fled years ago. Luckily, it also has the same cure, one which you already know and have access to… which, in addition to our minority status, is the thing which unifies us as a community here. For all the words I written here, the conclusion is abrupt and brief. Don’t forget your faith. Don’t forget that God commands us to forgive as we have been forgiven, and gives us the ability to do so. Don’t forget that joy and abundant life are yours, that the things of this world that hurt you will burn away in the light of truth someday. From the last paragraph of your post, I know you haven’t – as always, you manage to find gratitude in the tough things. Keep doing that, everyday. If ever you let go of that joy, of that willingness to forgive, then hatred has taken away what the seminary has tried so hard to say you couldn’t have – your faith. Don’t let that happen, my friend – too many people depend on the light that people like you shine. Much love to you.
November 23, 2009 at 1:46 am
KT
i love you guys, and i don’t even know any of you. this community rocks. i hope that i can find my own (locally) as i just begin to enter into this process.
that is all i can say tonight – i really gotta try to do some work. thank you both for posting these words – i don’t think i’d have achieved anywhere near the progress i’ve achieved this week if not for systematically going through this entire blog – it’s been incredibly nourishing for me and for my soul…. which is helpful timing, now that the fear begins to well up as i begin to consider telling my family – casey, thank you for story to help assuage that fear just a little – i really love the perspective i get from all of the faithful christians on here – gay or otherwise – it’s really damn encouraging.
g’night guys,
kt
p.s. and casey, i wouldn’t change how i spent my time last night, either (watch out, all, casey has become intimately aware of my amazing stalking skills – haha) – or all week for that matter (in which your words/comments were also a huge part, along with D’s, B’s, A’s, etc.). i feel incredibly grateful to have found this community just now – even if i do never meet any of you, and even if the blog is dying out a bit – it was still exactly what i needed at this time. i think i may see a Divine hand at work? nahhhh….we’re gay – nevermind.
oh well, i used the smiley again. g’night for reals.